Travel mapping updates - custom routes!

Hey everyone,

Just launched a new update for the travel maps with in particular a focus on the routes.

Firstly, the immediate thing you may notice when viewing trips now is that you can hover over each of the route lines. When you hover over them, it will give you an indication of the transport mode used on that route leg. If you then click on the route, it will show you the distance of that particular route leg as well.

But the really exciting change for me is the ability to add custom routes. I released a version of this quite a few months back now that was accessibly only if you toggled a feature flag. Well, after a fair bit of bug fixing and tweaking, I've decided it's good enough to be launched now for everyone to try out. This feature is for Supporting Members only.

One particular common issue is when people are on some kind of boat journey that we don't have routes for (which typically is any journey that is not a ferry trip). In that scenario, you might end up with a line like this:

You can see the route goes straight overland because all we could come up with was a straight line.

Well, if you're not happy with that, you can now create your own custom route. First click the button to add a custom route.

You should now see a red line appear on the map with markers that can be used to customise it. Drag the centre one around and you'll see new markers appear in between. Those can then be dragged as well to create a more detailed line. Adjust it until you have a route you're happy with. Then hit save on the left.

Voila, a custom route!

I hope you enjoy this new update. If you come across any bugs, please let me know and I'll do my best to fix it up.

[ Edit: Edited on 15 Apr 2023, 01:05 GMT by Peter ]

Yay, very cool to see this properly released!

Quoting Peter

Firstly, the immediate thing you may notice when viewing trips now is that you can hover over each of the route lines. When you hover over them, it will give you an indication of the transport mode used on that route leg. If you then click on the route, it will show you the distance of that particular route leg as well.

Worth noting that this only works when you've selected a single trip - not on the main map showing all trips.

[ Edit: Edited on 15 Apr 2023, 07:47 GMT by Sander ]

Quoting Peter

You should now see a red line appear on the map with markers that can be used to customise it. Drag the centre one around

I still think that initial center marker should look more "draggable" - maybe with a subtle pulsing animation or something like that? I find the draggability of the point to be pretty non-intuitive at first blush (mostly because I'd expect the line between points to be draggable).

Also, feature request for a future update: The ability to customize an existing "follow the roads" tripline. Usecase: I took a bus tour in New Zealand, with part of it leading from Puketi Kauri Forest to Cape Reinga, and the next segment from there to Awanui. The regular options for those segments include "Travel, bus", which follows the road part of the way, and then does the Pukenui to Cape Reinga stretch as a straight line. I'd like to keep the "following the road" stretch as is, and only customize the part that's a straight line. (When I select customize, it starts as a straight line between the two ending points. So for UI, I'd like a second customize option, which would start out from the 'current' tripline.)

[ Edit: Edited on 15 Apr 2023, 07:49 GMT by Sander ]

Bug report, probably unrelated to this update: If I middle-click the links for "Add a new trip", "Change map style" or "Share your map", the map shown is not my map. The actual functionality seems to still affect my map, so it's only the view that's affected - and then only for those three URLs, not for the others.

Thanks Sander, I did make an attempt to create pulsing dots, but it was proving a little more involved than expected so I ended up leaving it for now. I do agree it's still a little unintuitive on the first go.

Agreed on being able to create custom routes based on existing ones. I had that in my list of things to do as well, but decided I'd rather get it released first

Bug noted. Will try to fix asap.

Quoting Sander

Bug report, probably unrelated to this update: If I middle-click the links for "Add a new trip", "Change map style" or "Share your map", the map shown is not my map. The actual functionality seems to still affect my map, so it's only the view that's affected - and then only for those three URLs, not for the others.

This is fixed now!